My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
Duke and I are in week one of our Spring 2013 road trip. Monday and Tuesday we spent in New Orleans. This was my first trip to the city. We stayed in the French Quarter and did a lot of walking and exploring.
We drove into New Orleans from the north on the more than 23 mile long causeway over Lake Pontchartrain.
On Monday we took a river boat cruise on the Mississippi on a steam driven paddle wheeler called the Natchez. It was fun. The size of the Mississippi and the shear volume of water it contains blows me away. At one point on the river they told us the water was 240 feet deep!!
Tuesday night we had tickets to see Charlie Hunter and the California Honeydrops at the Little Gem Saloon. We have seen Charlie Hunter with his band at Yoshi's in Oakland several times. It really cool to see him on his own at a much smaller venue. I love his music.The Little Gem Saloon was a great small show room too. I bet there were only 100 people there.
I had never heard of the California Honeydrops. They were high energy and energetic. Everyone was out dancing and having fun. I would love to see them again some time.
Before we left New Orleans yesterday we explored the cemetery and the cathedral and lots more side streets. We drove to Biloxi, Mississippi where we spent the night. It has also been raining quite a bit and we got wet a few times but it was fun.
Duke and I are on a road trip again. Friday we flew to New Orleans. Our plan is to drive to Washington, D.C. exploring along the way. We'll be back home in Reno in about a month.
We have already had two rental cars. Renting the car for the trip at New Orleans airport would have cost us about $1000 more than renting it in Baton Rouge. The tax alone would have been more than we are paying for the whole rental! So we did a one day rental Friday night when we arrived. Saturday we drove to Baton Rouge. We visited the old capital and the current capital along the Mississippi. The current capital is the tallest capital building in the country. The view from the top included the river, Baton Rouge and all the surrounding country.
We picked up our second rental car, the one we will drive to D.C., in Baton Rouge and drove back to New Orleans to drop off the first car. Then we headed south to Grand Isle. We drove through the swamps on causeways and saw lots of fishing boats. As I looked out the car window at water on every side I was struck by the fact that we were visibly at or below sea level.
Grand Isle is a narrow Island due south of New Orleans right on the Gulf. Their are lots of nice houses and it looked like a great relaxing vacation spot. Every building is on stilts including the church, the Post Office and the school. After looking around a bit we headed back north and spent the night in Morgan City.
For dinner Saturday night we ate at Susie's Seafood. What a great experience. it looked like a dive and the tables were covered with brown butcher paper. We soon saw a big bin of boiled seafood coming out of the kitchen. The bin was dumped in the middle of the table of the people who had ordered it and they dug in.We had a fried seafood platter with frog legs, shrimp, fish, crab balls and some other stuff. it was really good.
This morning we went to Avery Island to see the Tabasco factory. It was interesting and the gift shopping and sampling were fun. But the best part of Avery Island for me was exploring the more than 150 acres ofJungle Gardens that were created by the McIlhenny Family. We drove through the gardens and got out multiple times to explore.We saw several alligators. The weather was humid but it was overcast and in the 70s. An absolutely perfect day. Don't miss the alligator in the picture below.
The gardens include an artificial lake with platforms built above the water to allow snowy egrets to nest. It is called Bird City and is a heron sanctuary. The map for Jungle gardens says that 20,000 nests are built each spring. The sanctuary was created to help save the snowy egrets that were almost wiped out by plume hunters. The sight of all those beautiful herons in one place was stunning.
Here is a short video of the birds at Bird City.
From Avery Island we drove to Mandeville on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain where we are tonight.
If you would like me to share my trip photo stream with you drop me an email and I will add you to the list.
During my first visit to Mexico in 2007 I decided that I wanted to learn Spanish. I began studying and have made quite a bit of progress. My other blog posts about learning Spanish are here. But I am still not where I would like to be. My goal is to be able to understand most conversational Spanish and to be able to talk quickly and to be well understood.
My favorite motivational blog and web site is Beny Lewis' Fluent in Three Months. He makes the case that the most important thing you can do in learning a language is to just start speaking it.
He also pointed me to italki a web site that offers native speaking language teachers and language lessons at very reasonable prices. You can find a teacher who is a native speaker from almost any country. I had an introductory lesson Tuesday for $1 with Carla from Bolivia. I am going to have my first real lesson tomorrow. So far it seems to be working very well. I am excited!
In the interest of full disclosure if you use an italki link form this blog I should get some free credits for lessons.
On italki you can also find people who have signed to be language partners. I haven't tried that yet but I think I might.
Earlier this month my nephew, David got married in Ludlow, Kentucky which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. I love weddings and seeing all the family and friends. This wedding was no exception. It was such a happy time.
Katelyn's Dad is the pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church of Northern Kentucky. The church was built in 1896. It has been a Catholic Church and a Baptist church and now the congregation is restoring it. One of their first tasks was to remove the dropped ceiling to reveal the soaring roof and stained glass windows. The acoustics in the church blew me away. The hymns and other music added to what was already a beautiful and joyous wedding.
The other fun thing about an excuse to travel like a wedding is that we get to explore new places. Duke and I flew into Cincinnati Thursday before the wedding. We picked up Allison Thursday night. On Friday we drove to Frankfurt Kentucky to see the capital of Kentucky. We took the capitol tour. What a beautiful building. It may be the most beautiful interior of any state capitol I have visited.
We were on the tour with a group of grade school children. Did they ever know their state history. When the guide asked them who the first Governor of Kentucky was, they knew (Isaac Shelby). When asked who what the state motto is they all said in unison "United we stand, divided we falll".
Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, the wedding was Saturday afternoon. Saturday night we went to the Blue Whisp Jazz Club in downtown Cincinnati. We had a great dinner and heard the Dick Sisto Quartet playing the music of John Coltrane. The vibraphone was right in front of where we were sitting. Dick Sisto wielded four mallets over the vibraphone and we sat and listened and I was mesmerized.
Sunday we went to the Union terminal in Cincinnati. It was completed in 1933 to replace the 7 train stations of the 7 different railroad companies that served Cincinnati. The building is an enormous half dome. Apparently one of the biggest in the world.
It has been converted into a museum center with 6 different museums. We toured the history museum which was great. But for me the highlight was the free tour of the train station itself. The mosaics above the central concourse are big, bright and beautiful. When we first walked in all I could do was stand there with my mouth open and say wow! I loved them. We got to go up in the old control tower and look out over the railway yard.
Sunday night we had a fabulous dinner at an Italian restaurant called Via Vite also in downtown Cincinnati
Monday we all flew home. We took Allison to Dayton for a 6am flight and then we flew out of Cincinnati at 2pm. It poured rain the whole drive to Dayton and back. It doesn't rain like that in Reno!
Now we are back in Reno for the big push to the end of Tax season. If you or anyone you know needs their taxes done I'd be happy to do them for you. Here is a link to my office with profile on the H&R Block website.
If you want a window into the things that entertain us and worry us I think the most emailed list on the New York Times electronic edition makes interesting reading. Today I not only enjoyed reading the most emailed articles but I got a chuckle out of the mix of articles that we felt the need to email to a friend.
The first article on the most emailed list is Personal Health: It’s Time to Say Goodbye to All That Stuff. It is an article about a self help book that the reviewer says really helped her with what she called her "life long tendency to accumulate too much of nearly everything that I considered potentially useful to me or someone else sometime in the future." I guess the fact that this is the number one most emailed article explains why the show Hoarders is so popular. Apparently everyone thinks they know someone who 'collects' too much stuff.
The second article on the list is Lives Restored: Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight. It is an article about "Marshe Linehan of the University of Washington, creator of a treatment used worldwide for severely suicidal people". This is also a fascinating article. Surely it being on the most emailed list is a sign of how many of us worry about a loved one who struggles with mental issues.
Number three on the list is Vital Signs: Risks: More Red Meat, More Mortality I guess I'm not the only one who worries about what I can do to live a longer healthier life. I emailed this one to my husband!
Just in case you were worried that this insight into our collective consciousness is not very much fun the remaining six articles on the NY Times most emailed list are about food! Clearly healthy food is not as much fun as guilty pleasures. Number four is Recipe: Homemade Twinkies,number five is Recipe: Chocolate Cupcakes With Cream Filling, and number six is Recipe: Homemade Fritos, They make me want to start baking right now. Number seven is an entertaining article about the woman who researched and tested all these guilty pleasure recipes including number eight which sounds really good Recipe: Fauxreos. Numbers nine and ten are recipes for Korean Pork not nearly as fun as fake Oreos!
Marion's Blog 